CSR Reporting

Sustainability reporting, alternatively known as CSR reporting, is the annual process whereby companies - public, private; large and small - report on their non-financial performance. These reports allow organisations to demonstrate to stakeholders the impact their activities are having on society. And there are very sound business reasons to report your environmental, social and sustainability performance to stakeholders.

It is becoming understood that the ‘softer’ issues that underpin the figures on your balance sheet are vitally important to your reputation and contribute to the overall success of your business.

How performance is communicated is important, especially as the investment community is taking more interest in non-financial operating accounts. This has seen a rise in triple bottom line reporting with organisations acknowledging the role of social, economic and environmental factors.

Verification of your CSR/Sustainability Report by LRQA will give you the assurance that your report contains the right things and that the data systems on which your reports rely on are robust and reliable. We can customise our verification services to meet your criteria and required level of assurance and can verify your reports against both AA1000 Assurance Standard and the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (GRI).

How can third party verification benefit my organisation?

There are significant benefits to choosing to having your Report verified, including:

• Independent assurance gives additional credibility of your Report offering assurance to stakeholders.
• Verified reports can be included on sustainability indices such as FTSE4Good and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
• Using the AA1000AS framework means stakeholders will know you have considered which sustainability issues are most important.
• Can also be linked to other prominent business audit and assurance standards.
• Undergoing the process may help identify areas for improved efficiencies and therefore cost savings.

We were closely involved in helping develop the principles for the AA1000 Assurance Standard and our experts have participated in GRI’s working groups. We were part of the materiality working group whose output produced GRI’s Technical Protocol. This publication was created to provide process guidance on how to define the content of a sustainability report. This includes deciding on the Scope of a report, the range of topics covered, each topic’s relative reporting priority and level of coverage, and what to disclose in the report about the process for defining its content.

This means we are in an ideal position to offer a thorough and robust assurance helping inform your decision making.

Need to know more?

Call 0800 783 2179 or complete our enquiry form for further information on our services.

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